Month: April, 2010

what is there to say?
you were my worst decision,
and i hope you’re well.

…in response to the stubborn continued existence of someone with whom I share mutual friends on Facebook. Someone I used to know, but don’t know anymore. The “who” in the answer to “what is the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Every now and then– more often, recently– I think of this person. And I want to say something, but I don’t know what to say.

A few months before The Worst Thing I Ever Did, I wrote this (rather embarrassing) poem:

I will break open wide
and spill all of this nonsensical poetry
i’m keeping in here

if you were to merely beckon
or
touch me soft like that again
I know I would

for all the promises
oh i never
I couldn’t, I am not
that kind of girl
[anymore]

I know that you would merely have to touch me
soft, like that
[please]

again

I would spill

That’s how hung-up I was. Hung up enough to eschew the common parenthesis for the more angular, distinctive bracket. Such was my longing. And this is all just a long way of getting to The Worst Thing I Ever Did, which is:

When I was 20, I slept with my friend’s boyfriend.

There are mitigating circumstances, and they are these:

He was 33, and should have known better.

I was obviously and obsessively infatuated with him, and he should have known better

I was high on LSD, and so was he

But on the other hand:

I was 20, and should have known better

It’s not like it “just happened.” I’d been infatuated for months, and I did, in fact, know better.

I went to his house and took LSD knowingly and willingly and with the idea that something might occur.

I was no innocent, is what I’m saying. I don’t know if he saw it coming or not, but he would have been an idiot not to. I, in my complete lack of defense, saw it coming a week off and even postponed our evening together because I was having second thoughts. I didn’t know if he wanted me, but I knew that I wanted him, and that if the opportunity arose to have sex with him, I’d do it.

I’m sure I didn’t think of it so crassly. It wasn’t crass sex, either. Certainly not gentle lovemaking, but it wasn’t heartless lust-fucking either. We did genuinely care about one another. There was love there– fucked-up love between fucked-up friends, but love nonetheless. And if you can take that one night out of the context of cheating and just see if for what it was, damn it, it was sweet and it was grand and it was a long time coming.

But you can’t take it out of that context. And I was no innocent, but she, the friend/girlfriend, she was. Innocent. And sweet. And undeserving of the wretched sort of person she had for a friend in me. I didn’t just betray her, no. I didn’t even have the audacity to lie. I didn’t have to. She knew, she knew, of course she knew. And she didn’t want to know, so for the next seven months she talked to me about how she had suspicions, she had fears, she felt that something had happened. We’d have long, long conversations on the phone and she would talk and cry about how she suspected something must have happened that night, but she never once asked. And so I never had to lie, and damn it, I never did.

Of course, I told her eventually. And eventually she even forgave me. But I have never forgiven myself. And it’s been nine years, and sometimes I look him up on Facebook. I look at his picture because he looks exactly the same and I wish I had something to say. It seems like I should have something to say other than wanting to blame him. Because the shame of what we did almost killed me. It really did. I was so horrified with what I’d done that I tried to kill myself, maybe not very effectively, but sincerely and more than once. And still, nine years later, I want to blame him. But I also want to say, hey, I hope you’re well. You look exactly the same. Thanks for introducing me to some really good bands, letting me smoke pot and do acid and drink to excess in a safe place, for being my friend, for inviting me into your bed even though it was the worst decision I ever made.

We can’t change the past, after all. What would be the point of regretting it? I wanted it so badly by the time it finally happened, that if it hadn’t happened I might very well have exploded. What I regret, if anything, is not saying something to my friend. Not telling her, hey, I’m madly in love with your boyfriend and it’s eating me up inside. I didn’t say anything because I was embarrassed, and because I was holding out hope that exactly what did happen would– he would, even for one night, choose me over her. The exact thing I’d been hoping since the day I’d met him.

And I’m still pissed off at both of us that he did.

A friend in need’s a friend indeed
A friend with weed is better
A friend with breasts and all the rest
A friend who’s dressed in leather…

I will turn 29 next Friday. The age seems important, although I can’t figure out exactly why. Because it’s the last year of my twenties, perhaps. Maybe just because it marks the start of another year.

I am afraid because I know that one can have great faith in something or someone and discover, painfully, how wrong one was. How nothing is ever certain or finally decided. How we can lose so much so quickly.

I used to think that I would be married and have a baby on the way by now. It just seemed logical, obvious, assured. Now that another year of my life is drawing to a close, I am considering how silly it was to think my life would follow a typical course. I certainly didn’t think I’d be closing in on 30 with no real direction in my life, no great drive to be anywhere or do anything much. My peers and friends are marrying off and having children, although no one very close to me these days is following a very typical course, either. My close friends don’t have regular work weeks, or spouses, or mortgages, or salaries, or retirement funds. I fit right in with the misfits.

I always thought I was destined for greatness of some sort. I am, so they tell me, attractive, intelligent, clever and funny and talented. Blessed. It seems such a waste that I should be doing so little with any of it. I have created nothing worthwhile or lasting. I’ve done nothing very noble or grand. I have always been told that I have great potential, but I’m not inclined any longer to strive toward anything much. I don’t feel particularly interested in or passionate about anything. I’m bored and aimless and oddly indifferent to it all. I don’t care, and I don’t care that I don’t care.

Maybe this new year will bring change. Maybe I’ll discover forgotten or unknown passion for something– anything. Maybe I’ll get shaken up enough to do something interesting with my life. I hope whatever’s coming isn’t too painful. I’d like inspiration, not panic, to be my motivator this year.

This will never be forgotten. These are not just words.
Friday, May 30, 2008 at 4:13am

He didn’t come over tonight. It’s all right that he didn’t, I told him it was okay for him to stay home and get some sleep. The boy, he needs his sleep. He’d been drinking and wasn’t safe to drive yet. So I was magnanimous enough to let him sleep it off. Aren’t I a peach?

I have a picture of him that I want desperately to post here. But I don’t, for three reasons:

1. I believe he prefers anonymity
2. You won’t see what I see, so what’s the point?
3. My ex might hunt him down and kill him

But this picture gets me. Right in the gut. Or the heart. Or the pants. Or something.

I am not used to being helpless, of knowing so well that I only have two options: full speed ahead or jump ship. I can’t pull back on the throttle or whatever I’d have to do to slow this thing down and make my metaphor work. I’m fucked, essentially.

So, I have crushes. I have the option of other lovers. There are people for whom I have some interest in that capacity. I can kiss whomever I want. Whoo hoo. It makes for a lot of boring Friday nights. Many, many boring Friday nights. Usually he is here on Thursdays, but tonight I graciously allowed him to bow/pass out. I even fucking suggested it.

Which is essentially like a junkie saying, no honey, you shoot the last of the heroin.

I’m twitching and alone.

And all the other drugs just won’t do because all I want is him.

I took a bunch of photographs because I’m already getting ready for the time when he won’t be around anymore, when these pictures and a few saved IM conversations are all I’ll have to remember him by. I’m already stockpiling evidence of his existence for when he’s gone. So I’ll know. So I can remember.

There was a really bad night back in… March? I think it was March. I was really fucked-up because The Ex had come over unannounced and thrown my brain out of whack. I drove over to CGB’s. I wanted so desperately to be held, but I was afraid to ask for it. I needed to cry, but I didn’t want him to see me lose it. He made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread, and we watched “Hudson Hawk.”

Grape jelly. And a beer. And… a stupid movie that I hardly even remember. I want to keep that memory close to my heart for the cold times, the dark times, the lonely nights. He made me a sandwich. I even ate the crusts. I drank the beer, although I don’t like beer.

They say the only way to be ok with death is to really embrace it, to live your life to the fullest knowing it can end at any time. And maybe the only way to love somebody is to know that they could fall away at any time, that this too shall pass. So I’m already treating him like a memory. Because I don’t know what else to do.

When I think of my recent attempts at dating and sex, the word “disaster” comes to mind. Not that anyone’s been horribly burned or lost their life savings or anything, but things haven’t been exactly smooth. Dates should not end with one party slipping away to buy cigarettes and not coming back. Sex shouldn’t result in apologies. Don’t you agree? So it’s not a date, it’s a disasterdate. It’s not sex, it’s disastersex.

And so now it’s gotten to the point that I’m afraid to even try anymore. Which is made more difficult by the fact that I’m completely boy-crazy and can’t go a week without falling for someone. So I’m in this weird state of desire/aversion all the time. I want! But I fear!

And I made out with someone last night. Understandably, I am now insane.